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Main » Articles » Pro Tour: Return to Ravnica Report

Pro Tour: Return to Ravnica Report

Max Sjoeblom
Posted on November 1, 2012
 Reddit

Hey, there! I’ve finally gotten over the flu I caught on my way home from Seattle. Sorry about the lack of content last week, but I hope this week makes up for it. Pro Tour: Return to Ravnica did not exactly go well for me, and I finished a very disappointing 3–5. I still learned a lot, and this week, I’ll cover the tournament. I won’t go into too much detail on the deck or about our trip, but instead save that for next week.

Fighting Time

Friday rolled around, and we boarded the shuttle bus to the very weird area where the PT was being held. The tournament site seemed to be some sort of cruise ship terminal and event hall in the middle of an industrial area mostly occupied by fishing boats and other vessels. At least the inside of the site was better than in San Francisco last year, and the food trucks that were present during the weekend really made a difference.

Here is the list I played.

"Twin"

Round 1 vs. Noah Long with Second Breakfast

It didn’t take very long for me to realize my opponent was playing some version of Eggs, and it seemed to be a really good matchup for me. It turned out it was, as all I needed was a Dispel in both games along with my combo to make it a quick win.

1–0

Round 2 vs. Yuuya Watanabe with Jund

Blood Moon
I assumed Yuuya was playing Jund, as the rest of ChannelFireball had chosen it as their deck of choice. Apparently, Yuuya only tested with the other Japanese players, so this assumption was wrong. I lost a close Game 1 in which he had quite a good draw, but the interesting situation came in Game 2. I had drawn all nonbasic lands and countered his turn-two Dark Confidant. I had the option of either playing Blood Moon or just sticking Pestermite with Splinter Twin in hand. Since he had played no basics so far, and Jund in general runs around three basics, I though the Blood Moon would give me the best chance of winning. Yuuya ended up drawing both a Forest and a Swamp in quick succession, so this gamble didn’t really work out. It was unfortunate that I had drawn zero fetch lands before I played the Blood Moon, as having access to even one Island would probably have been enough to win the game.

1–1

Round 3 vs. Nico Bohny with Griselbrand

I didn’t really know what to make of my opponent’s deck, but after a Gitaxian Probe, I discovered he was playing the Griselbrand reanimation deck with Through the Breach and Fury of the Horde. I won the first game with a quick combo and then lost the second one even though I had two counterspells and a blue combo piece to tap down the Griselbrand. Unfortunately, Nico drew a second Pact of Negation from the last possible card (one Griselbrand activation and an Izzet Charm), which meant I lost. In the third game, Nico had to mulligan to five, and it was never even close.

2-1

Round 4 vs. Randy Cummings with R/W/U Delver

Geist of Saint Traft
This is one of the worst matchups, and I was very happy when I won Game 1 with a fast combo. I had seen his hand from a Gitaxian Probe, and he had one turn to draw an answer, which he didn’t. In Game 2, I stumbled a bit and was beaten to death by a Geist of Saint Traft backed up with a ton of disruption. Game 3 started well for me, with my opponent mulliganing to five. At this point, I was very happy and almost felt I had made it to 3–1 already. Well, this was not really the case. An early Gitaxian Probe revealed two Path to Exiles and a Lightning Bolt, meaning my creatures were in trouble. I played a Pestermite to force the first Lightning Bolt, and I then played a Deceiver Exarch and Dispel to force him to use both Path to Exiles. At this point, my hand was Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and another Deceiver Exarch along with some card I can’t remember, which was not a piece of disruption. My opponent had two mystery cards, and I figured as long as they were not either Snapcaster Mage or Path to Exile, I should be in good shape, as I had mana to pay for Mana Leak on the Exarch. Turns out my opponent had a Dissipate, something I was definitely not expecting. I ended up never drawing another blue combo piece, and I died a number of turns later.

2–2

This was one of the games I’ve thought the most about after the tournament, as I could have won by playing differently. I might have made a huge mistake the turn after the whole turn with Deceiver Exarch and Dispel, but I only realized long after the game, so I was not sure if I drew a land or not. If I drew a land, that meant I had seven in play, enough to kill with Deceiver Exarch and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker on my own turn (play Exarch, untap a land, combo). I try not to beat myself up too much over this, as I’m not actually sure I even had the seventh land. I could also probably have waited on even playing the Deceiver Exarch, as the clock my opponent had was not very fast, and if I drew any disruption (Spellskite, Dispel, or Mizzium Skin), I could protect my combo better. It would definitely have won against his hand of two Path to Exile and one Dissipate, as he could not play all of those in the same turn with only three lands. To my defense, Dissipate was not a card I had seen in Modern ever, but Deprive could have been worth considering.

Now was the time to turn this around, I thought, as 3–2 in Constructed was still okay, if not ideal.

Round 5 vs. Jan Pruchniewicz with Jund

Dark Confidant
Game 1, I won on turn four, after my opponent had only played two Dark Confidants. In Game 2, I faced a ton of disruption and removal, but I managed to slam a Wurmcoil Engine on turn six or seven, with my opponent only having a 4/5 Tarmogoyf and a Treetop Village in play, along with one card in hand. Unfortunately for me, my opponent drew another very good spell, and after he attacked with both of his guys, he killed his own Tarmogoyf with Abrupt Decay and Lightning Bolted me for exactly 6 damage when I was on six life. I suppose I could have avoided this by blocking the Treetop Village, but I only thought he had Bolt and not two removal spells, so I thought it was best to just get rid of the real threat (the Tarmogoyf). My hand was all lands at that point, so I felt I really needed to try to stabilize properly, as I was not very near my combo yet. In Game 3, I again faced a ton of discard combined with Liliana of the Veil, and even though I managed to put the Wurmcoil Engine down again, it wasn’t really enough against the Liliana.

2–3

Going 2–3 in Constructed has become a bit of a habit this year, as in the previous two Pro Tours, I’ve gone 1–4 and 2–3 respectively. Not the best start of a PT, but at least I was still alive for Day 2—and even Top 8.

Drafto!

The Draft started out well, as I opened Jace, Architect of Thought and followed that up with Thoughtflare, Hover Barrier, and Izzet Charm. After this, the red cards dried up, and I ended up drafting a controlling Azorius deck. I had seen a Korozda Guildmage in the Draft, which was almost unbeatable for me unless I could race it with flyers, so I had some concerns. However, I still felt the deck was really good and that I could easily go 2–1, and 3–0 was not out of the question. I didn’t remember to take a picture of the deck, so my memory of what was in it is a bit hazy, but here is an approximate decklist.

"Azorius Control"

Round 6 vs. Anthony Hallett with Golgari

Jace, Architect of Thought
I kept a very good opening hand in Game 1, featuring Jace, two lands, and some 3-drops along with other cards, but I managed to miss my third land drop for somewhere around five turns. At that point, it was really too late even though my opponent’s first play was Axebane Guardian on turn five. I lost both games in similar fashion, as a Rubbleback Rhino with two +1/+1 counters scavenged onto it got in four times thanks to Rogue's Passage. This was a very frustrating loss, as my opponent was playing what I felt were really bad cards, such as Axebane Stag and Horncaller's Chant. His deck was, however, very good against mine, with four Trestle Trolls and two Towering Indriks, so the slow and clunky late-game cards were actually pretty okay in his deck.

2–4

This meant I had to go 2–0 to even be able to Draft a second time, which put on quite a bit of pressure.

Round 7 vs. Nicholas Marriott with Selesnya

My opponent was screwed in the exact same way I had been during the previous round, so Game 1 did not involve much Magic being played. Game 2 was a very drawn-out affair, with my opponent playing Trostani, Selesnya's Voice early on. Let me tell you: Trostani is one of the scariest cards to see on the other side of the table when you are piloting a slow W/U deck with almost no answers. This is the game I am most pleased about in retrospect, as I managed to play quite well and finally got rid of the Trostani with an Avenging Arrow. My opponent did make some weird lines of play, including blocking aggressively with his Bird tokens, which meant he had no flyers to populate later in the game.

3–4

Round 8 vs. Anthony Huynh, Rakdos

Rogue's Passage
Both of these games came down to judgment calls, and both times, I made the wrong call. In the first game, my opponent attacked me with a 4/4 and 2/2. I had a Hussar Patrol that I had flashed in along with an Armory Guard. My reasoning was that if I double-blocked the 4/4, Launch Party would get me good, so I blocked the 2/2 with the Hussar Patrol and the 4/4 with the Armory Guard. He had Dynacharge, which ended up killing both my guys and the 2/2. I then drew a few too many lands with my Sphinx's Revelation for 4 and narrowly lost. In the second game, a similar situation came up—I played around Dynacharge, but he actually had Electrickery. The game was really close, but on the last possible turn, he drew the Swamp he needed to kill me. Had I chosen a different line of play in the Electrickery situation, I would most likely have had at least a turn or two more, which was all I needed to win. Funnily enough, the card that killed me was once again Rogue's Passage. I guess it serves me right for drafting all these sweet walls.

3–5

The 3–5 result felt really disappointing, and I felt quite upset, but at least I managed to be courteous to my opponent who was very excited he had made Day 2. It feels that the Pro Tours of 2012 have not really been kind to me, and I look forward to next year breaking that pattern. In Honolulu, I felt I was underprepared, so I can blame myself more for not doing well there, but both in Barcelona and here, I felt I ran into some bad luck, along with small mistakes causing losses at critical points. I should probably have spent more time practicing my deck after I switched to it the day before the Pro Tour, as that might have helped me avoid some of the mistakes I made during the tournament.

On the Horizon

Island
There are only three European Grand Prix tournaments left this year, and as it looks right now, I won’t be making it to any of them, even though I sure do need the extra Pro Points. Lyon would have fit in my schedule, but as I hadn’t booked anything before Seattle, the flights had gone up to around 500 euros, which is very expensive for travel within Europe. I hope I’ll be able to make it to more tournaments during the spring and do well at the PT for a change.

If you are going to GP: Lyon or are just otherwise playing Modern, I would really recommend this deck even though my record was not that impressive. The list was very solid, and the only thing I would change would be to maybe cut a few of the nonbasic lands for two more Islands, as you really need that basic Island once you are bringing in Blood Moon.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, be sure to let me know either through Twitter or the comments section below. Next week, I’ll talk some more about our testing process and the choices I made regarding deck selection. I had initially planned to write about that this week as well, but the tournament report portion itself was quite long.

Thanks for reading,

Max

@thebloom_ on Twitter

Maxx on Magic Online

You can find my music on: http://soundcloud.com/bloomlive

TAGS articles, pro tour, draft, limited, tournament reports, report, modern, recap, return to ravnica, max sjöblom

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